


Nom De Plume

by OrionLady



Series: O Blessed Child [1]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Adoption, Child Abuse, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Muteness, Recovery, Trust Issues, canon whomst?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 06:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20701487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionLady/pseuds/OrionLady
Summary: Peter is used to wearing a mask. It’s easy and somehow this is no different, even though everything’s changed. Mute, powers retracted, Peter now hides himself from the world in a very different way. Luckily, his new guardians are there for the fall out. Peter’s story of healing after an abusive foster home, through nicknames.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Series title taken from "O Blessed Child" by the Brothers Bright. Go have a listen! 
> 
> I've played with Peter's age a bit so he's slightly younger than in canon, mainly so I can fit the whole series in before he finishes school.

Thor calls him “Little One.”

Peter doesn’t think much of this, considering _everyone_ is little by Thor’s standards. And Peter is, well, on the scrawny side. The doctors even call him borderline malnourished.

It comes easy off the demi-god’s tongue:

“May I have some of your delicious salsa, Little One?”

Or, “Your school project is in superb form today, Little One.”

Or the weirdest (warmest-fuzziest) one to date, “I have been requested at your parent teacher meeting. Something about giving you harder curriculum because you’ve exceeded your classes. I’m so proud of you, Little One.”

The name’s not just a name either. Not something Thor says but something proven in the way he can cup Peter by the ribcage in both of his huge hands and set him up on the counter.

In the way he never calls Mjolnir or lightning in Peter’s presence.

In the way one of Thor’s nightshirts is knee-length on Peter.

In the way he’ll pick Peter up and cradle him on his hip, restraining but somehow gentler than a hug, when the teen tries to run away from them, tries to hide…

In the way he sometimes hums over Peter when he notices the boy’s hands shaking at breakfast after a night of avoiding sleep.

On those days the routine is the same—he’ll feed Peter muffins and then take him to the kitchen sink, put a towel around the boy’s shoulders, and wash his hair. Because he knows Peter’s hands aren’t steady enough for a shower or to be trusted with a shaving razor.

Thor’s callouses are surprisingly tender. Comforting, anyway.

Peter will it deny to his grave, but when it’s just Thor and him alone like this, Thor humming away to some ancient tune and scrubbing shampoo through his hair…

Peter feels like he’s allowed to be small, to be his age, even if it’s just for the five minutes Thor washes his hair.

Peter feels _normal_.

And that is a luxury few can afford in their line of work.

* * *

Tony calls him “Small Fry.”

“Small Fry, we need to work on your fashion game because holes in the jeans are one thing but holes in your undershirt? That’s just sad. Like, Oliver Twist sad. Here, I bought you half of Target.” Tony throws bags of clothes in his face. “Try ‘em on.”

“These are fantastic cookies, Small Fry. I’m impressed.”

“No, Small Fry. No touching my Camaro until the paint’s dry.”

“Love you, Small Fry.”

This is perhaps the most insulting of all nicknames—it rubs at Peter like a pebble in his shoe—until Tony blurts something one afternoon in the lab.

“Hey. Big Guy.” Tony flaps his fingers, not looking away from some gutted engine on the floor. “Pass me that socket wrench.”

Peter points to himself before remembering Tony can’t see it. Is this a new nickname?

Tony is still flexing his fingers in that impatient, demanding gesture and Peter looks around wildly for the wrench. There are so many that it’s hard to tell which one is a socket wrench.

Then quiet footsteps—quieter even than Peter’s voice—come up behind Peter and retrieve a wrench among the dozens on the floor.

Bruce, with that wry and droopy smile, tucks the wrench in Tony’s outstretched fingers. He winks at Peter.

Peter waves back and is pleased to see Bruce’s eyes light up. The physicist taps Tony on the shoulder.

“What? _What_, Big Guy?” Nonetheless, Tony turns around because he respects that tiny scientist with every bone in his body. Tony’s eyes go huge. “Oh! He’s—you’re waving, Small Fry! Waving! Friday, did you record this momentous occasion?”

Which is a stupid question because the AI records everything. Friday doesn’t even respond. But it’s the enthusiasm of the question that’s important.

“Do it again, Small Fry!”

Peter’s cheeks flush but he obliges. After rocking his wrist back and forth he wags his fingers against his palm, like toddlers do.

And if Tony’s eyes are bright, he blames it later on the fluorescent lights.

“What did I tell you, Big Guy?” asks Tony, leaning an elbow on Bruce’s shoulder. “The kid’s a marvel.”

Bruce rolls his eyes. “Never a doubt, you loon.”

And Peter finally understands that Tony doesn’t call Bruce “Big Guy” to mock him (it’s still ironic to everyone involved that Bruce is the smallest of them all, even smaller than Tony) or to remind him of the Hulk…

But because his intellect is just that big, to remind him to boast about it once in a while.

Then Peter realizes and _his _eyes tear up.

Tony pales, mistaking the tears for hurt or fear. “No! No! We’re just so happy for you, Small Fry. You’re bouncing back. Aww, come on. No crying in my lab.”

Belying his words are the grease-stained arms that slowly, oh so slowly, wind around Peter in a side hug. Tony can wrestle a robot and tear its head off one-handed but he squeezes Peter like he’s going to break him.

Tony never explains emotional gestures like nicknames.

His hold does, though. It says everything.

“No one’s mad at you or upset,” Tony soothes, almost frantically. Bruce alternates between patting his friend’s shoulder and Peter’s.

“Easy, Peter,” says the physicist. “Easy.”

The nickname is extended in the security protocols on Peter’s bedroom door, the armed guard who sometimes follows him to school, the one Tony still thinks he hasn’t noticed. In the low growl Tony does in his throat when Child Protective Services workers harass Peter in the park.

He’s Tony’s fragile cargo.

“Small Fry.”

Better known as:

_“I’ll protect you, Peter.”_

* * *

He expects some Motherland term of endearment from the only Russian in the compound. Something cliché like how she used to call him “Solnyshko” when watching movies with him.

Then Peter’s life went to crap and she didn’t dare call him a moniker he doesn’t even fit the bill of anymore. They live in closer quarters now that he’s moved in but verbally the distance grows.

No, Natasha doesn’t call him much of anything that first month after the adoption. Or the second month. Or the third.

Just the usual fare that they all call him of “Kid,” “Pete,” or, rarer still, “Itsy Bitsy.”

Heck, most days she just points at him and goes, “You. Help me roll dough” or “Go to bed, you.”

The only thing predictable about their relationship is that he becomes her shadow on bad days. If the V lines around her eyes soften when she sees his haunted gaze, then none of the others call Peter or Natasha out on it.

She’s a woman.

She hurts to look at and yet when she brushes Peter’s hair out of his eyes he thinks he’s been stabbed in the lungs with something acidic and euphoric all in the same breath. Maybe this is what drug addicts feel like.

This is better than cocaine. It hurts more too.

It should be Pepper. Peter feels guilty that it isn’t. Pepper is the most hands on of the two women, the one who packs Peter’s lunches and kisses his cheek.

(Pepper calls him “Sweetie.”)

Even Peter doesn’t understand why, then, Natasha is the one who makes his brain time travel. The one who makes him feel like the world inside his heart is still and as it should be.

Peter and Natasha don’t talk much _at_ _all_, in fact.

But if seeing Ned with his mom guts Peter, eyes glazed and panic so close under the surface, Natasha nods at him— “You”—and he follows her. They usually go to the dance studio. Nat stands in front of Peter at the barre, doing plies while Peter copies her.

They don’t turn on lights. No music. This is a sound proof room so none of Tony’s collateral noise.

There is just Natasha’s curls catching moonlight and turning it into fire, Peter’s breathing, and the shuffle of socks on spongy flooring.

Natasha’s arms weave up and out and in dryadic shapes but Peter’s hands remain on the barre or at his sides. Close to his chest.

Every week they do this. A ritual. In Peter’s case, a high.

At the five-month mark, Natasha, now in a leotard and fluffy leg warmers, looks back at Peter. “You’re getting better at this.”

It’s four am. Even Tony has gone to bed. Peter likes the compound better than the tower if for no other reason than the lack of traffic noise. Like it’s just the two of them on planet Earth.

He tilts his head. Nat smiles.

Then Peter grips Natasha’s right hand in both of his, wading it up until only the index finger remains free. He feels Natasha go limp and is floored by her trust. No one is allowed full control of her limbs like this. He treats the loan carefully.

She only looks calm as Peter pokes his own chest with her finger.

There is a question in his eyes.

Natasha examines it for a long moment. Like a sentence, she rereads Peter’s querying eyes.

To his surprise, she pulls away to drag over a metal chair. She pushes on Peter’s shoulder to sit him down. Then she crouches over her heels, at his eye level. Her hands are folded and elbows resting on her knees.

Natasha’s eyes are smaller now because of some intense fondness. “Do you know my history, Pete?”

Peter nods…then gives his head a little shake.

Natasha seems impressed, either way. “You’re correct. I’m sure you know some of it but few know its entirety. Long story short, the Red Room made me into something I didn’t ask. Even if I do have an aptitude for…”

Her brows do a dive before smoothing. “Doesn’t mean I had any choice in the matter. They gave me the name assassin and I was expected to live up to it.”

Peter’s chest pangs for her. He reaches out and pats her shoulder, like Bruce always does for him.

Faster than lightning, Natasha gently snatches Peter’s fingers and presses her ruby lips to his palm. Peter is so shocked that he jumps. His breath catches.

Natasha lowers her hand but Peter holds on. Their arms swing in the space between them.

“I don’t call you nicknames like the others,” Nat murmurs, “because you should be free to become who you want. There’s nothing wrong with nicknames, but my absence of them is symbolic. _No one_ gets to define you. I’ve lived in a cage for too long and by God, that’s not happening to you on my watch. Got it?”

It takes Peter almost a full minute for his ears to stop ringing so he can nod. Natasha squeezes his hand.

Her jaw flexes once and stills. “Your future is a blank canvas, Peter Parker. Only _you_ get to paint on it.”

Natasha isn’t Aunt May.

The assassin doesn’t call him “Tough Guy” or make bad casseroles.

She doesn’t call him much of anything at all.

Instead she helps him with his homework and teaches him self-defence. Her keen hearing finds him in the vents every time he squirrels himself away from the team, as if his new guardians will hurt him.

Sometimes he forgets that just because they’re big, doesn’t mean they aren’t loving. That they won’t rip him limb from limb and be cruel just because they can and _make him_ _watch _and Peter’s hyperventilating before this thought…this memory…finishes.

Natasha’s the one who crawls up the ladder, legs supported by Clint, and whisper-coaxes Peter down into Steve’s waiting arms. Steve sits the boy back against his chest and rocks them until the world isn’t exploding before Peter’s eyes.

Natasha teaches Peter to dance, to speak the basics in four languages. To fend off bullies.

Sometimes, when it’s quiet, she bakes shortbread and sings to him in languages that sound like ocean spray.

Natasha is Peter’s easel. She props him up and displays the whole world like it’s his.

Maybe, just a little, Peter is starting to believe her.


	2. Chapter 2

Everyone thinks it will be Tony. Heaven knows the man has given everyone _else_ nicknames based on films and bad TV shows.

It seems like a matter of time.

Until the eight month mark.

“I did not draw the short straw!” Steve protests at Peter’s miming. The soldier puts a hand on his hip. “I _want_ to be here.”

Peter gives him a dubious look. One where his head dips down but his eyes do not.

Steve bristles under the expression. “If you must know, Bruce and Tony and I had a huge fight about who should be allowed to represent you. They, of course, have expertise on their side.”

Peter pokes him in the bicep.

“Yes,” says Steve, not a little smug. “I won.”

Peter pokes him again and mouths, ‘How?’

“I argued that all _six of us_ legally signed as your equal responsibility guardians so I have the right to be a part of your school life.”

Poke.

“Okay, so I may have given an inspirational speech about your need for different kinds of role models—”

Poke.

“Fine!” Steve throws up his hands. “I told them I’d do their laundry for a month! There. You happy?”

Peter isn’t fooled by the mock anger. He grins a small, private grin and nods, tugging twice on Steve’s button up hem.

It is a quirk none of the adults can figure out. When shy or needing something, Peter tugs on their clothing exactly twice, like an old fashioned door bell.

It drives Clint nuts—he’s consulted child psychologists and specialists and none of them have any idea why Peter clings to the habit. It doesn’t help matters any that Bruce _full well_ understands why Peter does it but won’t tell the others.

“It’s not mine to tell,” Bruce always says before Clint answers with a flick to the physicist’s forehead.

Steve’s eyes are fit to burst with joy and he ruffles Peter’s hair.

It is just the two of them in the hallway. All the other kids have gone inside on this sunny Saturday. Even through the closed gymnasium doors Peter can hear the scramble of students. Laughter. Techno music faintly underneath all the conversation and bustle.

Peter wrings his hands.

“Hey.” Steve hunches a little to catch Peter’s eye. “You’re going to be great. Thor talked to the judges yesterday and they said your presentation board is all they need for evaluation. And you flying the drone, obviously.”

A science fair. What a stupid thing to be nervous about.

Steve must read this sentiment in Peter’s eyes because he shakes his head. “I’ll let you in on a little secret if you promise not to tell Tony.”

Intrigued, Peter finally glances up. Steve’s hand is on his shoulder, warm and firm but not harsh. Not hitting. None of them ever hit or raise their voice. They deserve a child better than Peter for that alone.

Thankfully Steve does not read this thought. He tugs Peter to his chest so that the teen can feel Steve’s heartbeat between his shoulder blades.

Steve coughs above him, red in the face. “I was absolutely terrified to get my first needle. A vaccine, I can’t even remember which now. I used to faint at the sight.”

His voice drops to a conspirator’s whisper and at a sudden heat, Peter realizes the man put both arms around his chest without Peter noticing. An improvement from the gasping at contact when they first adopted Peter.

Peter grasps Steve’s wrists where they cross over his sternum.

“Have you ever noticed Bruce treats me alone in the lab after missions?”

Peter’s head bobs.

Steve smiles. Peter doesn’t know how he knows this, since he’s staring ahead now. But Steve definitely smiles. It’s a release of tension all throughout the soldier’s body. “I’m _still_ afraid of needles. Even tiny ones for morphine shots or IV lines. I don’t faint as much but…Bruce is nice about it. He’s the only who knows—and now you.”

Peter is a deer in the headlights for a moment before he beams. He makes an ‘x’ over his heart.

“Thanks, Pete,” says Steve. He gives his boy a squeeze, releasing him. “You’re a man of your word.”

After that Steve just stands there and apparently this is one of those ‘honourable life lessons’ where Peter has to do this ‘for himself because it will build Peter’s character, Tony’ and all that.

So Peter pushes open both gym doors and yeah, it’s a wave of _everything_ to his senses. But he gets there.

Then he spies MJ through the melee. She’s set up her table across the lane from him. She waves in a beckoning motion when she sees him. Her project has something to do with oysters. Or phosphorous. Peter’s not sure which.

Honestly, with MJ it could be both.

Her father stands to the side. All around the twenty or so booths parents are trees planted beside their children.

Steve doesn’t disappoint. The only difference is that he’s worn a baseball cap to at least _try _and keep a low profile.

It works. No one stops for an autograph. Peter feels terrible that he’s glad Tony didn’t come. He doesn’t need that kind of attention.

Peter’s booth is already prepped and decorated. He just has to load the computer and unplug the custom drone from its charging station. Steve thumbs through emails on his phone.

“Medical delivery drones?” asks Principal Morita, reading the board headline, and Peter nods eagerly. “How does that work?”

Steve puts the phone down.

Peter clicks coordinates into a few graphs split on his laptop screen. Instantly, the drone whirs into action. It zips over the heads of science fair crowds, towards a refreshments cart at the back.

Little titanium claws retract and pick up a whole basket of chocolate chip cookies.

Principal Morita’s brows disappear into his hairline.

Peter watches while his creation (no help from Tony whatsoever, thank you very much) zooms back to their table. There are awed “wows” from people watching the display.

With precision to rival a surgeon’s, the drone sets the basket down, plucks the top cookie, and sets it in Morita’s open palm.

“I can see how that would have useful applications in the field, Mr. Parker,” says one of the judges who has wandered over. “Especially in disaster areas our medics can’t reach.”

Peter nods. His face is flushed with pride and so is Steve’s and really, what more can Peter ask for?

Morita and other parents spend at least twenty minutes playing with the laptop screen. They make the drone pick up items and turn off the light switch. Everyone is captured by it.

The judges in all their tweed coat glory have just begun taking notes on a clipboard when someone erupts into flames.

Peter flinches horribly, nearly dropping the drone. Steve catches it and him.

Someone just…bursts into flames.

Well, not someone’s whole body. Just her arms from the elbows down.

Peter puts it together in a blink: Harvey’s volcano malfunctioned and spit sparks onto the table next to his—

MJ’s table.

She doesn’t scream, just makes an awful warbling sound of shock and flaps her orange engulfed arms. Steve reacts before anyone has time to gasp. He yanks MJ by the back of her shirt so that she dunks arms-first into the water bucket under her table.

When she straightens, the flames erupt again.

Steve stares bug eyed at what seems to be a macabre magic trick. Then he squints at her display.

“Phosphorus?” he breathes.

MJ nods at Steve. She’s drawn blood from biting at her lip.

Peter spies the solution twenty feet across the gym. He knows he’ll never be able to run there and back before the phosphorus melts MJ’s skin for good.

With a press of the button, the drone speeds for the pail of traction salt and sand used by Coach in the winter to melt the ice. It picks it up and hurls Peter’s way at 80 kilometers per hour before he’s taken two breaths.

It is still too far.

Peter jumps five feet in the air and snatches the pail handle from the drone’s claws. It’s this vantage that allows him to see the volcano about to spit fire again.

A cry is rent from the back of his throat. Steve focuses on the injured sound immediately, eyes darting to Peter and if that isn’t the most instinctive parenting thing any of them has ever done then Peter is a fish.

“Everybody down!” Steve hollers.

Adults, judges, and students flatten just in time for Harvey’s Mount Vesuvius to explode in a display of baking soda, red dye, and electrical sparks.

Peter leaps to the ground and runs at MJ. He bowls her over, spilling the copper salt and sand in a mound over her body.

It works: the fire vanishes. MJ’s sweater is toast but her skin is only puckered in places. The table covers them from the worst of the electrical sparks, though Steve drags both teens out with a worried look creasing his face.

It seems impossible but the gymnasium clock doesn’t lie—the whole ordeal has only taken four minutes.

At least ten parents call 911. Then Peter’s life is flashlights in his eyes, MJ’s father crying, Steve quietly explaining to EMTs why his kid won’t respond to questions, and strong arms leading him away from the gym.

Only when the doors close does Peter hear Steve’s litany.

“Deep breaths, Pete. That’s it. We’re okay. Take as long as you need.”

The two stand there, Peter trying to get his breathing under control, Steve visibly unwinding as the adrenaline fades. It is long enough for EMTs to whisk MJ away on a stretcher.

Not before she holds her hand out to Peter. He comes over. She places a trophy in his hands. ‘Third Place,’ the plaque reads. MJ has her own, reading ‘Second Place.’

Peter smiles.

“It’s true,” says MJ, as if Peter’s face is a statement. “We lost to Abraham’s fancy frequency translator. I still think we’re the best. Good job, bro.”

Peter gives her a shaky hug, best he can with the stretcher rails between them.

Steve and Peter wave when MJ is finally loaded into the ambulance. It is just the two of them once more.

Steve snakes an arm around Peter’s shoulders. “That’s enough saving the day for one science fair, Frodo.”

Peter jolts. Steve doesn’t notice, now sending a quick text to Bruce about the situation.

With hesitant starts and stops, Peter splays his hand on Steve’s chest. The buttons are cool under his fingers. “Samwise.”

Not even an air-to-ground missile can startle Steve but apparently Peter’s raspy goblin voice does the trick. He actually drops the phone. He picks it up and hugs Peter all in one go. Steve’s tone sounds casual but Peter can feel his body vibrating.

“That’s very flattering, Peter. Samwise is always my favourite character.”

And suddenly it is the funniest thing in the world right now that Captain America accompanied him to a high school where they show his motivational videos and Peter’s first spoken word in eight months is a stupid _Lord of the Rings _character.

Stupid. Absurd. Unreal.

It’s so funny that Peter is off laughing before he can take another shallow breath. His face is crimson and his eyes scrunched and when something wet falls down his cheeks, Peter’s not sure if he’s laughing or sobbing and either way oxygen is at a premium.

The world lurches.

Peter opens his eyes to see them seated on the floor, Steve against a set of lockers and Peter’s back to his chest. Rocking them like he always does, Steve whispers things in Peter’s ears that are too hard to focus on because _breathing. _

Everything is pulsing and Peter only realizes he’s scratching at himself when Steve’s arms pin his own across the chest.

_Breathe._

Steve bends his knees so that he is a crib between Peter and the world. It is this, of all things, that begins the calming process. Peter can finally hear beyond the ringing.

“I’m so proud of you, son. Always will be.”

Something spears Peter through the lungs and blossoms into a hope that makes his eyes sting.

There is a wet and smacking sound coming out of Peter’s mouth and it must frighten Steve because the grip tightens. Ribs press into Steve in a quick breath.

There are so many movie-based nicknames in the following weeks. Steve calls Peter “Lewis, like that _Robinson’s _movie” and “Toto” and “Inigo Montoya” and “hobbit” and “Tigger” and…

But in this moment, Peter hears something he hasn’t entertained since he was four years old.

Peter presses a hand just over his heart. “Son?”

Steve bundles him into a cocoon of super soldier and presses his lips into the hair around Peter’s temple.

“Yeah,” Steve whispers, choked. “_Son_.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've seen some concerns about backstory and don't worry - an explanation is part of the story's climax!

Clint calls him the same thing, every time, without fail: on post-it notes and voice messages and whispered in Peter’s ear when he’s cowering in a closet somewhere.

_You’re not in that senseless foster home_, Peter berates himself in an endless loop. _Stop crying and get it through your head!_

“Champ” sounds like something soccer dads call their kids, akin to “sport” or “tiger.” Peter assumes that’s all it is, especially when he’s introduced to Laura.

(“Behold!” Clint cheers, lifting Peter up by the arm pits like a human Simba. “Our fourth child!”

Laura just rolls with it and calls him “Peter Pan.”)

Clint is such a dad that he could be in a Home Hardware catalog, chopping wood in plaid. He _does _chop wood in plaid. He makes dad puns, puts whip cream in Tony’s slippers.

“I won’t hurt you, Champ.”

“Champ, wanna come help me set the table?”

“Pranking Sam will be fun, Champ, I swear.”

Peter hasn’t thought much of it.

Until the first time he calls Peter that in front everyone else.

Maria Hill is finally done with all the tests, everything from drawing blood to neuro mapping. She sits Peter down in the communal living room. Her voice is even and professional as ever, even if she can’t hide a shadow in her eyes.

Clint plays Mario Kart on the couch at Hill’s back, eyes never leaving the screen. He twists and ducks, yelling smirk-faced threats at the game while he “drives.”

It’s a big deal to see the archer around. It still amazes Peter that Clint signed the guardianship papers at all. He’s away with his family even more than Thor.

So naturally the others are planning a huge dinner to celebrate. It’s why they’re the only three people around this afternoon.

Hill takes a moment to spread files on her lap. She’s sitting on the coffee table, knees a hand’s breadth from Peter. The teen wipes sweaty palms on his own knees.

Maria sees the action and offers a small smile. “Banner and I have tested everything, Peter. Then we thought to check for other…enhanced people. _Young_ people, minors. That seems to be the key. This never happens in adults.”

She leans in. “But it happens to youth on rare occasions, especially when they feel threatened or aren’t eating enough, like you were in the care of the Henderson couple.”

Peter glances away, to the side and eyes on the floor. He doesn’t talk much, even after last week’s science fair (he woke one night to hear Steve telling the others about it in ecstatic tones) but Maria doesn’t seem to mind or expect him to.

A rustle of laminate on clothing precedes a chart set in his lap.

Peter picks it up. The design looks familiar, but he can’t figure out what the alpha-numerical strings mean. He murmurs in his throat.

“This is you, Peter.” Hill taps it with one finger. “Your DNA strands. Or some of them, anyway.”

Clint’s clacking buttons still.

“It’s perfectly normal—well, for you. Your mutated genes are still there.”

Peter’s eyes ask a question. Maria has set her tablet on the carpet beside her. Peter reaches down and flattens his fingers to it, then lifts them up. The tablet doesn’t stick.

“Yes,” she answers. “Your powers are still receded. MIA, if you will.”

Hill watches the boy for a minute. The agent looks unruffled, so much like Nat sometimes.

Understanding dawns on Peter in a creeping tidal wave. The reason Maria Hill always avoids him, even though she works in this building; the way she sometimes wears a hat or dyes her hair just to be in his presence.

It is her way of being kind.

And it must work, because he’s never noticed the uncanny resemblance until now.

“I m-miss her,” Peter blurts, surprising himself. His voice is still so gravelly it’s almost unrecognizable.

Hill’s answering grin is warmer than the tropics. “You know what? So do I. I only met May a few times but she had more grit than all of us put together.”

Peter smiles and finds, for the first time since the science fair, that it is genuine.

Then he looks at his chart and his face falls.

“Peter.”

He wonders how close the nearest vent is. How much it would hurt if this woman were to smack him too.

“Peter. Pete, please look at me.”

Peter does. He finds Maria’s brows drawn in concern but her mouth a determined line. “Peter, I want you to know that this is perfectly okay. Nobody is demanding you get your abilities back or be ‘normal.’ Honestly, no one in a five-mile radius of this facility has the right to call themselves normal. Even if your body never puts out these powers again, you’re still important to us, Peter, still special.”

It is a shocking thing to come out of the agent’s mouth, for she is not one for maudlin displays or birthday cards or affection at all, really.

Peter breathes thickly now.

He knows it’s only a matter of time.

The only reason CPS let the Avengers keep him is because he’s different, something no foster family wanted. Now that he’s just Peter, the government will probably take him back.

He shakes his head.

“Peter?” Hill grips Peter’s knees to keep him from bolting. “Don’t you see? Your body literally sucked its abilities back into itself to hide, because they’re the reason the Hendersons abused you. It did what it had to for survival. It’s _not your fault_.”

And that’s the lynch pin, isn’t it? It’s always Peter’s fault.

The only thing Peter retains of his old abilities is enhanced sensory perception. It’s the reason he hears Clint swear low in his throat, four letters and a universe of rage.

The whole team has raged. Loudly. To anyone will listen. An avalanche of vengeance and Tony flying above them as an archangel of justice—quite literally. He cuffed Derrick Henderson himself and presented the subpoena.

Not without breaking the man’s jaw first.

Peter refocuses to see that Hill is gone. She has taken her charts with her and the painful reminder of a past life.

Clint continues to play. When his car goes off the rainbow bridge, Peter knows he’s not really paying attention.

“This is no fun with one person,” Clint announces. “Come lose to me, Pete.”

Peter scoffs. He may not have heightened reflexes anymore but he’s still young, not even out of puberty yet. Clint nudges a bowl of cucumbers and humus in Peter’s direction. Even though Peter never feels like eating he nibbles them anyway.

“You want to be Princess Peach?” Clint offers—graciously, since she’s his favorite avatar. He hands Peter a controller.

“Want M…M…”

Peter’s atrophied mouth muscles betray him. He can’t spit it out.

“Mario.” Clint nods without looking away from the start menu. “I gotcha. That’s a good choice.”

Peter relaxes. He’s so grateful when Clint comes to visit. He doesn’t condescend or treat Peter any differently, even though he signed the legal papers and testified against the Hendersons.

_What did I do to deserve these people?_

Nothing, Peter knows. Nothing at all.

They play until the sun starts to set, until Peter beats Clint five games out of seven, and until savory smells emanate from the kitchen down the hall.

Clint blows a noisy breath through puckered lips. “How are you better than me at this?”

He doesn’t comment on the way Peter’s scarred left hand finds his shirt or the way it tugs twice. Clint just loops his arm around Peter and pauses the game.

“I heard you saved a girl at your school from melting flesh.”

Peter rolls his eyes but nods.

“Great job, Champ. That’s some stud points right there. Hey, it’s not Thor cooking this “surprise” dinner tonight, is it?”

Peter nods.

Clint groans, hand over his eyes. “Nnnoooo…we’re all going to die!”

Peter tries out a wink, just like he’s seen Bruce do. Clint halts. He peeks at Peter from underneath his palm and his brows shoot up.

“Did you just punk me?”

Peter flushes, worried suddenly that he’s crossed a line. He shuffles out from under Clint’s arm.

Clint’s eyes, however, light up to rival fireworks. His face spreads into one of those full cheeked, fan-lines-around-his-eyes smile.

“Good stuff, Champ!”

The hose of relief washing over Peter makes him limp enough not to fight Clint when the man pulls him in for a noogie, more of a gentle hair messing.

Peter mimes putting on a pair of glasses with his hands.

“Oh, thank goodness. Bruce’s cooking may go heavy on the spices but at least it’s edible.”

They wander into the kitchen and Peter is surprised to see no one there. Pots boil away on the stove, an eggplant lasagna covered in tinfoil on the island.

Clint glances down the hall. His face tightens.

Peter follows his eyes and sees why: the other five are saying their goodbyes to Maria, Tony shaking her hand. All wear grim expressions.

_Guess they heard the news about me_.

Peter wonders if Child Services will be here to pick him up.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on it. The others file in (“Surprise, Bird Brain!”) and the table is a mess of arms and candles. The others chatter over each other, fight with forks for the last bite of couscous, and laugh at the tale of Steve getting pulled over by a cop while on his motorcycle.

Tony keeps a hand on Peter’s knee throughout the whole meal, like Peter will float away if he doesn’t. There are possessive arms around his shoulders and sad squeezes to his hand.

All them are lively but comforting in a silent, choreographed dance.

It happens so fast Peter doesn’t have time to think. One second the boiled tea kettle is knocked off the table by a stray elbow in a swan dive towards Clint’s bare knees and the next Peter is moving.

Eight months ago, Peter would have just webbed it or caught it in his hand without looking away from Steve’s story.

Now he focuses every ounce of arm muscle into lunging out and slapping the kettle away from Clint. Clint, who has no powers just like him now. Clint, who’s tells bad jokes and reminds Peter in velvety low tones that he’s not in Henderson’s personal hell anymore.

He succeeds. The boiling water, spilling over the open top, doesn’t even touch Clint.

It lands on Peter’s legs instead.

All one point five liters of it.

Steam rises from his blistering skin. He curses the warm weather, that he and Clint had to pick today to wear shorts.

There’s immediate bedlam. Again, choreographed bedlam. But chaos nonetheless.

“Small Fry!”

“Get the kit—”

“No, Thor. Cool the area first.”

“Bandages—”

Peter reaches down to wipe the residual water off his skin—it _burns_—but Tony snags his hand, skin the shade of vanilla ice cream. “Don’t want your hand to have the same fate.”

They mop up the water, Steve draping cool cloths over each of Peter’s legs before Bruce starts on a salve. No healing factor to fix this. That turned off like a faucet, along with Peter’s strength, his sense of danger…

Peter doesn’t know if he wants it to turn on again.

Clint gapes at this whole spectacle. He rarely, if ever, wears such open amazement.

“You saved me, Champ! You really are the best!”

Everyone freezes.

It seems comical to watch a super soldier, a world class engineer, a physicist, an alien, and a double agent stutter on their hands and knees in the act of first aid on a boy’s twiggy legs and cleaning a floor they pay someone else to clean anyway…

If it isn’t for the weighted look they share in a lightning flash of near-telepathy. The temperature in the room drops.

Steve’s face is devastated. A tear—a real, live tear—escapes Tony’s eye.

Peter can’t be the best, their legacy, with the way things are now.

A charred future. Scorched out before Peter ever reached it. It’s crushing them all inch by inch.

It is Bruce who realizes the hidden meaning of Clint’s words, sitting back on his heels. He breaks out into a beaming expression. He even chuckles a little.

Natasha boggles at him. “Are you sure you can’t get drunk?”

Bruce ignores everyone to tweak Peter’s nose. “You save people. It’s who you are. You’ll always be a hero no matter what skills or technology you have…” He pats the left side of Peter’s sternum, the teen dazed. “In here.”

You’d think someone had shot them all. They crouch, stock still, and say nothing.

Peter shatters the stalemate by standing on wobbly legs, Steve’s hands snuggly around his torso in case he falls, and twining both arms around Clint’s neck.

Clint is only gob smacked a split second before embracing the boy back. Peter hardly ever initiates touch, despite how affectionate his default personality is.

“We’re going to be alright, Champ.” Clint laughs, but it’s breathless more than amused. “We’re going to be just fine.”

* * *

Later that night, when Steve tucks the quilt up to Peter’s chin (one of them always checks in when he goes to bed, even though he insists they don’t need to) the burly man bends down and whispers, “You’ll always have us, son.”

Peter, eyes closed, stills.

“Peter?”

He must frown because then he’s being scooped up in hard, muscled arms that somehow cradle him with infinite care. One arm stretches from Peter’s shoulders, along his spine, to just under his knees. The other cups the back of his head.

It should be strange for a boy of fifteen to be held in a child’s position to someone’s chest, bandaged feet dangling against the right set of Steve’s ribs, but the embrace is pleasantly stinging, like his fingers are unthawing after hours spent in freezing wind. Peter whimpers.

How far he’s come from days of being shot at and sassing off criminals.

There’s only a scared shell now. Peter knows it will be his downfall. It already _has been_ his downfall.

Henderson and his fists proved that. Peter whimpers again.

At the helpless noise, Steve hushes him. He doesn’t rock them, just walks to the window and back. Moonlight paints Steve’s bare feet in milky hues. His toenails are blood blistered and chipped from years in combat boots, refreshingly imperfect.

Peter doesn’t realize his heart rate has calmed, that it was elevated in the first place, until he sucks in a shaky breath and it stops hurting.

The chest under Peter’s ear hums. “There we go.”

It strikes Peter that Steve _is _enhanced, that he has probably been hearing the distress under Peter’s skin all night.

Steve’s thumb rubs back and forth through feathery hairs surrounding Peter’s ear. His hand is larger almost than Peter’s skull. It has taken every hour of the last eight months to build such trust, for any man so big to full-body hold Peter like this.

His heart misses a beat.

This time Steve does give a rock. “Easy, kid. Ssshhh. There are lots of ways to hide you know, to wear a mask.”

Peter reddens. He chooses to stare at his fingers tangled next to Steve’s and marvel at the size difference. Like comparing a canoe to a yacht.

_How did I ever think I was powerful?_

“We took you in because we love you, son. Not because of what you can…could do.” The fervent tone drops to a whisper. “Don’t shut us out. Please. We’re not going to turn on you like Derrick.”

Steve hikes the teen up so he’s tucked under his chin. Peter’s eyes are distant. It is an odd sight against a quick tremble in his lips. He firms them to stop it.

“You’re so brave, Peter.”

Brave?

Peter doesn’t think begging for the steel toed boots to stop kicking and hoarding food under a thin, moldy mattress is very brave. He wasn’t brave the night he refused to go to that “invite a friend” knitter’s circle with Aunt May.

Then he remembers Clint.

“Champ,” Peter croaks.

Steve nods. “You’re our champ. It suits you.”

Champ.

Champion.

It means winner—even if the victory is saving someone from hot water instead of a bullet.

Or believing these arms over angry ones in his mind.


	4. Chapter 4

Peter doesn’t think Bruce is in on this nickname game at all. Bruce just calls him “Peter.”

Nothing more, nothing less.

He says it in that signature, quiet tone, “Peter, could you grab me another beaker?”

“This idea for a filtration system is genius, Peter.”

“Green tea, Peter, or herbal?”

For the first few weeks, Bruce keeps away from Peter, thinking his alter ego is a frightening elephant in the room. Until the others catch on that Bruce’s smaller size means he’s one of _the best_ comforts to Peter.

So that’s where they can always find the boy. Sitting on the floor of Bruce’s lab, tinkering away at something with a magnifying glass or a pipet.

Then one day Sam saunters into the lab.

“Hey! Big Guy, Muay Thai!”

(“Get it?” Sam ruffles Peter’s hair. “Muay Thai is the art of eight limbs! Come on, I’m funny.”)

Peter glances up from his cross-legged position on the floor and waves. Sam imitates the fingers-to-palm gesture with a laugh. He’s dressed in jeans, tennis shoes, turquoise polo, and a nice blazer. Distinctly casual yet chic.

It raises Peter’s suspicions immediately.

“Wilson.” Bruce lifts the magnification head gear off his face. “To what do I owe this misfortune?”

“Aww, Bruce. You know you love me.”

“Not if it involves another ‘field trip’ I don’t.”

Sam, in his grand tradition of fostering strays, has made getting Doctor Bruce Banner back in the world his personal project. Or mission. Peter isn’t sure which.

Sam comes in at least once a week to coerce the little man on some outing.

“Muay Thai here can come too, since he’s done school for the summer.”

Peter frowns in surprise, setting down a screw driver. Bruce is surprised too but he smiles.

“So that’s your ploy this time, is it? Invite Peter and I’ll magically come along?”

Sam claps his hands together and nods. “You bet your green buns, it is. You, me, Muay Thai, and Fifty Second Street.”

Bruce pales at the exact same instant Peter rises to his feet. The therapists assure them Peter is socializing well, all things considered. He still goes to school, plays Frisbee with Steve in the park.

_Does he think I’m a recluse too?_

Bruce stands and places both stiff hands on the desk in that affronted posture Peter knows well. “No.”

“Come on, man—”

“You want us to traipse around Manhattan’s high end shopping district in the middle of June? You know me and crowds.”

“It’s a gorgeous day out. Steve thought it was a great idea.” Sam folds his arms and with that motion, Peter knows they lost the battle. Nobody beats Sam Wilson when he looks like that. “Besides, we need to buy Natasha a gift and Wal-Mart just doesn’t cut it for a lady who can disembowel someone with a ball point pen.”

“What about Pepper or Wanda? They’re women, better experts on this.”

Sam scoffs. “Wanda and Vision are playing house somewhere in the Falkland Islands. Radio silence.”

(The scant two times they visited, Wanda called Peter “Pietro” in hushed tones and he can’t tell whether it’s a compliment or her mistaking him for her brother and he doesn’t want to know either way.)

“Before you ask, Hill is working. Pepper is away with Tony and Natasha for that charity event,” Sam finishes.

The man’s eyes flick briefly to Peter. One brow quirks.

After a second, Peter gets the message. He pads over to Bruce and tugs twice on the physicist’s sleeve. Bruce deflates.

“Do you want to do this, Peter?” he asks.

Peter thinks about the sunshine. About being on the streets. About a slice of normal.

He nods. “Ice c-cream?”

If Sam’s ex-black ops stance doesn’t convince Bruce, Peter’s garbled question sure does. It’s the nail in the coffin.

“Sure,” says Bruce, tugging Peter under one arm. “We can get some ice cream after.”

They take Sam’s beat up, beloved Ford truck. Peter squeezes between the head rests so he can listen to the two men’s conversation up front.

Despite all the protest, Bruce visibly enjoys himself. The drive is long but no one cares. Midday sun beams down on Sam listening to Stevie Wonder and when they park the truck just outside Central Park, the streets aren’t as busy as Peter expected.

They don’t do much shopping, in the end. Bruce eats a pretzel while they window shop and Sam hits on beautiful women. Peter holds Bruce’s sleeve for most of the journey but he’s grinning.

He’ll never know it, but Sam and Bruce fight tears all day because this is the most bright eyed Peter has looked since May died.

Sam snaps a picture of Peter feeding some of Bruce’s pretzel to a passing golden retriever and sends it to Steve.

Peter is still nonverbal. It doesn’t stop him from pointing at pianos in windows and kites and anything else that delights him.

He feels like he’s eight years old again, high on Uncle Ben’s shoulders.

Sam buys Natasha a membership for use of the bicycles in Central Park because it’s no secret anymore that she loves watching ducks.

Bruce purchases season tickets for the ballet and a buckskin leather hand bag (there’s a false bottom where she can hide a gun.)

It is Peter who, panicking about what to gift the Russian, finds the scarf. Not just a scarf.

_The _scarf.

“That?” asks the store clerk in the high end boutique, staring at Peter. “You’re interested in that?”

Peter bobs his head.

“That’s been tucked on the back shelf for _months_. We can’t seem to sell it.”

Sam and Bruce stand behind him with impressed looks. They have been to no less than twelve boutiques and other than the handbag, nothing looks remotely like Natasha.

But this scarf is somehow _the exact same colour_ as Natasha’s eyes. The most saturated, emerald green Peter has ever beheld.

It is also a bizarre material he hasn’t seen in any other store. It feels like a marriage of cashmere, silk, and linen. It isn’t too bulky nor too long. There are no frills or tassels on it. Just a sumptuous cross stitch of the most unique thing Peter’s seen.

Just like Natasha.

Peter mushes his hands in the scarf.

“That means he’ll take it,” Sam translates.

Peter pays for it with the lunch money Tony always gives him. His guardians haven’t caught on yet, that Peter eats maybe one lunch every two weeks of school. What Tony doesn’t know won’t hurt him, Peter figures.

They are on their way back to the truck when Bruce suddenly points in a comic book shop window.

“Look, there’s Peter.”

Peter follows Bruce’s eyes to a display of Spiderman merchandise. Bobble heads, art work, Spiderman Christmas ornaments. Behind it is a sign that reads, ‘_is our vigilante dead? Has he hung up the suit?_’

The sign and its message is not a new thing for Peter. News reports speculated for weeks where the masked hero might be. The hype has died down, thankfully.

Bruce’s words are new, though.

Peter gawps, dumbfounded, at the physicist.

Bruce’s brows beetle. He nudges Peter. “What? That’s a Peter display.”

Peter shakes his head. ‘Spiderman,’ he mouths in argument.

Bruce goes down in a crouch faster than Peter can blink. It forces their eyes to lock.

“No,” says Bruce, soft but firm. He pokes Peter’s chest. “There are not two people in here. There’s just you, Peter.”

His hand cups Peter’s cheek and the tender gesture from please-don’t-touch-me-for-your-own-safety Bruce Banner surprises him so much that Peter melts into it.

Which shocks Bruce—he almost loses his balance. Sam steadies his shoulders and acts as a human shield from the sidewalk crowds.

“You’ve always been enough for us, Peter,” says Bruce, Sam nodding along. “You may have saved people once as Spiderman, but it’s Peter Parker we fell in love with. You’re not less sufficient now, nor do you need to ‘measure up’ for us to love you. You’re _enough_, Peter.”

_Enough_. He tries out the words in his mind. _I’m enough._

Peter is throwing his arms around Bruce’s neck before he even thinks to move.

There’s wind-milling arms until Bruce figures out where to put them. Peter feels the shudder in Bruce’s hands where they loop around his back.

“Okay,” Bruce breathes. “Okay. This is good.”

“You too,” Peter whispers.

Bruce’s body kind of skips a whole few seconds like he’s suddenly a mannequin.

The gesture must signal confusion because then Sam joins this group kneel and murmurs to Bruce, “He means that you’re enough as Bruce Banner too. We don’t love you for the Other Guy.”

There are a whole lot of Very Manly tears in front of Manhattan shoppers but Bruce doesn’t let Peter go for anything. Peter buries his face in the saffron-smelling curls and his chest does a flip flop.

Sam leaves and comes back. At a chocolatey scent, Peter finally pulls away from the embrace.

Sam holds out a waffle cone with a smile. “Chocolate brownie is still your favourite, right?”

Peter nods and mouths a ‘thank you.’

“You’re welcome.” Sam lets out a content sigh. “Nat’s gonna be so impressed when she sees our gifts.”

The ice cream hits Peter’s tongue the same time a fizzy pride does.

_I’m Peter_. _They love Peter, not Spiderman._

Peter Parker sounds pretty good after all.

* * *

It doesn’t occur to Peter that he actually has _seven_ legal guardians until Rhodes’ annual Fourth of July party.

Really, it should have occurred to everyone months ago, even if their seventh hasn’t technically signed the papers.

“I’ll never understand why Tony insists on picking out my clothes.” Bruce fusses with his black sport coat. If it weren’t for the self conscious fidgeting, the man could double as an Armani model. “Or why _I_ have to come to this thing.”

Peter, standing next to him in his own white dress shirt and jacket, just bites his lip. It’s the same routine for every social outing—Bruce complains the whole time leading up and then has a blast once he gets there.

Bruce pauses his twitching long enough to push the button for the compound’s communal floor. The elevator hums to life. It carries them up from the basement floor.

“Do you think Tony will do the ‘open a saran wrapped gift using oven mitts’ thing again this year?”

At Bruce’s question, Peter shrugs. He’s nervous too, so he takes the glasses from Bruce’s coat pocket and tries them on, earning a laugh from the little scientist. Peter reverently tucks them back in Bruce’s pocket.

Everything happens at once.

A klaxon blares to life, the frequency for an urgent mission.

This isn’t alarming to Peter—the Avengers have gone on lots of missions since adopting him, usually leaving him in the care of Pepper or Rhodes—but the power suddenly cutting off is.

Peter balks.

The elevator jolts to a stop.

Even the alarm sparks out in a truncated screech.

Bruce and Peter breathe in the dark for a suspended minute, one harsh wheezes and the other high pitched puffs. The silence is appalling. There aren’t even any emergency lights.

In the pitch black, Peter gropes for Bruce’s hand. Bruce grabs him immediately.

His grip is almost crushing.

The terrible reality of that sends a bucket of ice water down Peter’s scalp.

He wishes desperately that he could see. This scenario has never happened before. Peter can tell, without exchanging a word, that Bruce doesn’t know what this means either.

Still, Bruce sounds relatively calm when he goes to the elevator phone. He puts it to his ear. “Someone cut the landline. Peter, do you have your cellphone? I left mine in the lab.”

Peter doesn’t get a chance to answer.

The elevator doors are pried open.

Suddenly he can see but wishes he can’t. Peter expects to be greeted by Thor’s worried yet wide smile or Tony in a gauntlet complaining that his tuxedo is ruined.

Bruce and Peter get a face full of black Kevlar instead.

It’s a five man tactical team standing in point formation. No Hydra insignias, no SWAT markers. Nothing. They’re harnessed with enough automatic rifles to stage a coup over a small country. Halogen lights on their scopes illuminate the grisly scene. The man at the back has a bazooka launcher strapped to his back.

Peter can’t tell what floor this is without any numbers, but it’s distant from the surface where they’re supposed to be. They’re underground. Trapped…_hunted_.

Without even meaning to, Peter sucks in a terrified, rattling breath.

All five men turn in his direction.

“_No_.” Bruce’s hand shoves on Peter’s chest so hard it mushes him into the wall and stays there. Peter is stupefied—it’s the most force any of the six have used on him, ever. It’s far stronger than little Bruce Banner should be.

Then Peter registers that the hand is too large for Bruce. The skin is still pasty white, but when Peter follows the arm up to Bruce’s face, it bulges with irate fire. Acidic green eyes.

Bruce is still in Bruce form.

Peter, however, sees the instant pilot controls switch.

It’s a miracle to watch—the amount of sheer willpower Bruce must be exerting not to fully transform in this cramped elevator. It would mean an instant death for Peter, powers or not, from compression alone.

“_Mine_,” snarls a voice that doesn’t sound like Bruce at all. “_MINE!_”

This galvanizes the startled team to life.

The lead man hisses into an ear piece while another kneels to aim his rifle. “Target acquired, sir. We have a minor on scene. If you’re sure…leverage. Yes, sir.”

Several things occur in unison:

Peter notices the rifle barrels are too fat for a bullet, Hulk bends his knees, and there is the sound of a mosquito for less than a second. Peter doesn’t worry too much—who can take on the Hulk?—

Then Hulk-in-Bruce’s-body lets out a groan. His paw slips from Peter’s bruised sternum. Bruce closes his eyes, now fully brown, and crumples to the floor. A pink feathered dart protrudes from his shoulder.

The sight of the strongest Avenger Peter knows being subdued in less than five seconds yanks a cry from his throat. It is not the warning sound from the science fair. It isn’t a vulnerable whimper.

This cry is fear charged to match his racing pulse, broken, starting low and shooting upwards around tight lungs.

It is the sound of a child under attack.

The lead man of the assault team flinches, like this cry physically pains him. Then he jerks his head at the man next to him.

“Take the shrimp. And shut him up.”

One massive, gloved hand clamps around Peter’s throat.


	5. Chapter 5

Tony will never, ever forget the way they found him, all those months ago.

He’ll take the image to his grave, Napalm burned behind his eyelids.

The only reason they find out about May’s fatal freeway car accident and Peter’s subsequent foster home is because Peter has stopped going to school and Mrs. Henderson leaves her husband to report at the police station.

_Tony only hears two sentences out of a hysterical Mrs. Henderson’s mouth—something about how it started when her husband raised a fist and Peter scuttled up the wall to hide on the ceiling and “we’ve fostered lots of kids, Mr. Stark, but never a mutant. We were afraid! He could kill us in our sleep!”—before he leaves Bruce and Natasha to deal with her statement. _

_The Henderson house is a mess. _

_Overturned tables, slashed curtains, blood on the bannister. Steve, who remained composed for most of the news, sees the blood and goes very…very still. It’s still one of Tony’s most frightening memories of Steve. _

_It takes twenty minutes of frantic searching for Thor to give a shout. An alarmed one, at that. Tony, Steve, and Clint run for the sound. _

_It matches the wild gurgles coming from a locked linen closet. Thor breaks the lock off one handed, handle and all. _

_Peter is like a frenzied animal. He sees them and backs into the corner and there’s hardly an inch of skin that isn’t purple with bruises or shredded skin or cigarette burns and he’s so thin and…_

_“He’s not here, Peter,” Steve says, tears an unashamed river down his face. “It’s just us. We’ve come to take you somewhere safe.”_

_Peter shakes his head, eyes scrunched, arms outstretched like he’s trying to push on an invisible table. He won’t stop making those heart-string-snapping noises. _

_Tony is the first to get it. He places a shaking hand on Thor’s shoulder. _

_“Th…Thor you’ve got to move.”_

_“What?” Thor’s head whips around from where he crouches in front of the closet. “And leave him in this state? Absolutely not.”_

_Clint briefly closes his eyes. “He means you’re scaring him, Thor. You remind him of Derrick.”_

_Thor is bewildered and Tony envies him for it, that his childhood was so untainted that he doesn’t understand. “How can that be? We celebrated his birth date just two months ago. I gave him a piggy back ride.”_

_“You’re big, Thor.” Steve snaps and the tone is so ironclad that Clint jumps. “Move.”_

_Thor stands and leaves the hallway and Peter immediately quiets. He just weeps and trembles. _

_Steve reaches into the closet. Peter whimpers but his teeth close around Steve’s fingers. Steve whips his hand back, covered in bite marks._

_Tony has to literally sedate Peter to get him out of the closet. _

_“I’m sorry,” Tony rasps. Steve holds Peter down while Tony shoves the syringe into Peter’s arm. “I’m so sorry. Everything’s going to be better now. I’m sorry…”_

_None of the four men’s eyes are dry. _

Tony will never forget the way they found Peter. It keeps him up at night. Those horrified, animalistic wails. It’s there every time Tony closes his eyes. 

Peter went from confident, newly minted Avenger-in-training to traumatized orphan in two short months.

_They get full story from Mrs. Henderson later, about how much psychological power Derrick wielded over Peter too, so much abuse in that arena that Peter had stopped manifesting powers, had shut them off in some unconscious effort to make the “mutant, danger to our family” beatings stop. _

_Derrick, little by little, made Peter believe that he was a threat to those around him. That being locked in a two by two closet every day was for everyone’s safety. _

_Worst of all…Derrick threatened to sell Peter to his buddies if he didn’t obey. _

_It explains why he never tried to escape._

_Supervillains may have tried to kill Spiderman, but it only takes one sadistic Derrick Henderson to shatter Peter._

_For three solid weeks after a hasty adoption court hearing, while Peter’s body heals, not one of the adults can get close enough to touch Peter, barely even doctors. Not even Pepper or Natasha can. _

_They have to leave bandages on the counter so Peter can re-wrap injuries himself._

_Every day mute Peter hides in kitchen cupboards. Closets. Vents. Even Clint’s empty bow case, that one time. Peter’s just _that small_._

_He eats there in tiny bites. Where he feels no one can steal the food. _

_It is only one night, around a month in, when a barefoot Peter sneaks into Tony’s lab. Tony only notices because the heavy metal track cuts off. Friday isn’t the smartest AI on the planet for nothing._

_Clint is asleep on the couch with a book over his face. _

_Tony puts a soldering iron down on the desk and stares, transfixed, at Peter’s soundless approach. Seeing eyes on him, Peter gums at the sleeve of his too-large sweater. There’s a little blood on it from the still-healing busted lips. _

He’s coming to me. He’s coming to me of his own free will.

_Tony keeps his body relaxed and utterly motionless._

_Peter makes it to Tony’s elbow in stops and starts. The courage mustered on his face is breathtaking, even for something as simple as being within arm’s reach of a muscular man._

_Peter’s hand, the one not in his mouth, quivers so hard it blurs. But then Tony feels it tug, exactly twice, on the bottom of his shirt. _

_It’s the first positive physical contact Peter has had with another human being in almost one hundred days. _

_“You okay, Pete?” Tony asks, sotto voce. Clint’s breathing speeds up. “You need something?”_

_Peter nods. Also a first._

Communication!

_“What is it? You have a nightmare? No? Did something scare you?”_

_This time there is a hesitation. Then Peter shakes his head. The sleeve is wet from his toothless biting. _

_Tony kicks himself for not putting it together sooner. _

_“Are you hungry?”_

_Clint isn’t breathing at all now. Neither is Tony. _

_This question is make or break, something Peter never acknowledges. He’ll pass out before reaching for food. Once, Bruce had to hand him a glucose injection._

_Peter’s brows furrow in a little crease. His eyes dart across the floor, lost in some inner battle. _

_“I forgot to restock the pantry shelves yesterday like I always do,” says Tony, realizing it even as he speaks. “You went looking for food and there was nothing to eat?”_

_Peter doesn’t nod, but his cheeks flush. It’s all the answer Tony needs. _

_“I know for a fact there’s some crunchy peanut butter in Bruce’s lab.” Tony stands slowly, watching Peter back up like a loading truck. “How does that sound, Small Fry?”_

_In reply, Peter takes his hand. _

_Before exiting the lab, still hand in hand, Tony glances over his shoulder. Clint lifts the book from his face and gives Tony a thumbs up, eyes wet. _

_For some reason, that night is the beginning of the up swing. Things get a little smoother. _

“Tony? You going to stare at that gauntlet all night?”

Memories melt away to be replaced by the present. And a smiling Colonel Rhodes in full medals regalia.

“Hmm?” says Tony.

Rhodes cocks his head. “What’re you thinking about?”

Tony glances around his lab. “When we adopted Pete, that dam-breaking symbolic moment or whatever. The first night he asked for food.”

Rhodes’ face darkens but he nods. “He’s come a long way. As have you.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “I’ll never forgive you for the ‘World’s Best Dad’ mug. Never.”

“Grouse all you want. You know it’s your favourite.”

It is. He’s not about to tell Rhodey that.

“Now come on!” His friend waves an arm. “The party is starting!”

There are only forty guests when Tony arrives in the communal living room, small for Tony’s standards, but they’re all good friends or family members of employees.

Everyone is in casual evening wear, Natasha with that beloved green scarf she hasn’t taken off since her birthday. Steve is actually _laughing_ at one of Maria’s jokes. Sam has already hit up singles in the room. Clint has started a darts game with some poor accountant who hasn’t put the identity, he’s-the-best-archer-on-planet-Earth thing together yet.

It’s, dare Tony say it…cozy.

There are kitschy American flag streamers and classy red, white, and blue champagne glasses. Someone has left a bottle of Coke on the bar counter for Peter, the only minor who will be attending this party.

“Where is Peter anyway?” asks Tony with a whap to Thor’s bicep.

Thor cuts off his animated story to Jane and Darcy. “He and Banner wanted to finish a test. When I went to check on them, they mentioned something about miniature technology.”

“Nanotechnology,” Jane gently corrects.

“Hey, are there going to be fireworks at this party?” Sam jogs over to their huddle. “Because every respectable Fourth of July party ends with fireworks—”

The siren blares to life for only four seconds.

Then lights wink out.

Scratch that—the compound’s whole _power grid_ winks out. Tony feels it like an arthritic senses a storm.

The room hushes.

It is Maria Hill’s eye, of all people, Tony catches across the crowd. She’s head of logistics and security and she doesn’t disappoint.

“Everybody out!”

Her yell spurs the guests into action. There isn’t the usual civilian panic. These people are in the orbit of Avengers and weird is in the job description. They exit in an orderly formation, quiet and hunched out of view of the windows at Hill’s directing. Rhodes leads the way with her taking the rear.

They file out onto the lawn and into the trees.

Tony snags Hill’s arm. “The bunker?”

The woman nods. “We’ll keep them in the forest bunker until one of you knocks with the safe word.”

Tony’s brows fly up. “We have a safe word?”

“Get your mind out of the gutter. It’s ‘Apollo.’”

“Apollo,” says Steve, running to them. He’s already clacking away at a phone. “Got it.”

The communal room empties until only the remaining five Avengers and Sam are left. Hill and the guests disappear into the night.

Suddenly Natasha is at Tony’s elbow, squeezing the life out of it. “Where are Bruce and Peter?”

Tony loses feeling below his legs. If this is a penetration of the facility—like they all know, deep down, that it is—Peter won’t stand a chance.

“Friday’s down,” Steve announces.

“So are thermal scanners,” says Clint. “We’re flying blind, here. Someone disengaged Tony’s souped up power system in fifteen minutes flat.”

Tony catches Steve’s eye. “Which means they know what they’re doing.”

Thor joins the group and completes the circle. “Or what they want.”

They freeze. There is no sound. No barrage of bullets or strike teams. The night is still.

No one says a word but they all realize it—_We’re not the target._

Though in a black cocktail dress, Natasha whips a Glock from a hidden pocket. “Let’s go.”

Without power, Tony can’t even call a suit to himself. It’s maddening. Natasha graciously lends him a Beretta and Clint retrieves his bow from behind the bar. Steve’s room is on this floor so he runs to get his shield, a flashlight, and Sam’s Sig Sauer and rejoins them.

They don’t dare split up. Tony doesn’t hear Hulk’s roar but refuses to put it to chance. If the green behemoth escapes, they’ll need all hands on deck.

For five minutes it is just the _pad, pad, pad_ of their dress shoes on carpet. The silence is eerie. This isn’t a fanatical attack for show or sport.

This is professional.

This is _prepared._

It isn’t until they hear a low drone that they catch a break.

“_Peter_!”

Tony is running full tilt across the pavement leading from the parking garage to the service road, little more than a dirt path, that snakes away into the trees. Lack of suit be darned.

The hover craft car isn’t technology Tony’s ever seen before but he recognizes the design style immediately. He lifts the Beretta, fires off two shots that spark fires in the hover engines.

Thor flies past him. The sight of his coattails in the wind would be funny on any other day.

So would the Avengers’ lack of formation.

They abandon training maneuvers. Nobody gives thought to strategy. They just run. Steve _zooms_ past Tony at an inhuman speed.

Their eyes are hooked on Peter, bleeding from his mouth all over the ground, latched onto the hover craft’s sliding door while two men try to pull him inside.

Peter sees them and stretches his arm out with a cry they can see but not hear. It wrenches something primal in Tony’s chest.

He mirrors Peter’s needful action with a sob. Their fingers reach for each other, futile.

The hovercraft does a sudden, vertical launch into the air. It shoots higher, higher…

_Altitude. They’re taking him where the oxygen is thin._ It seems to be working. Peter’s eyes go woozy and flutter. His body sags. The arms drag him inside and out of view.

And then the hovercraft’s busted engines explode.

Because of Tony’s bullets.

“I killed Peter,” he howls. “I _killed_ him! Go to hell, Ross!”

Everybody on the ground slides to a halt. Eyes locked on the sky. Tony screams in helpless frustration. Natasha swears beside him in Russian. Violently.

The blast knocks Thor off his flight path. He is buffeted back to the ground.

It looks so bizarre that it can’t be real—

Peter’s limp form appears at the hovercraft’s open hatch, feet off the floor. He’s like a ghost, floating there. A huge body shoves him out the door just before another fireball lights up the night.

They tumble into a free fall from the height of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Tony has lived through some bizarre crap but nothing has ever taken his breath away like those two bodies soaring through the air in a bear hug. His knees wobble.

Peter and Hulk hit the tree tops and are thrown at an angle, skidding a huge rut into the Earth.

The Avengers sprint to the scene. The dirt cloud goes up their noses and makes their eyes water but the sight of Bruce’s bleeding arms and legs around Peter in a human buffer is the most beautiful thing Tony has ever seen.

Clint falls to his knees beside them, weeping.

Peter is unconscious—lips blue—so it is Bruce…no _Hulk_, green eyes and all, who bares his teeth at them in a fiercely proud expression.

“_Mine. _He’s _mine._”


	6. Chapter 6

“We’re here for you.” A brush of lips. “The doctors say you’re healing at a normal pace. Only two fractured ribs and tracheal tearing…precious Solnyshko.”

* * *

Whispers in laughing tones: “You’ve got to wake up, Champ, before I murder Tony. He makes guilt tripping an Olympic sport.”

* * *

“I’m so sorry I could not catch you in time, Little One.”

* * *

A chair is dragged over. “I brought C. S. Lewis. You like that, Frodo…right?”

“You’re reading him _The Magician’s Nephew_?”

“Yeah. Thought he’d like that one. Magic rings and stuff.”

A beat.

“You’re a Hallmark movie waiting to happen, Steve.”

“Better than your choice. Seriously, Sam—who reads a kid _Old Man and the Sea_ when they’re in hospital?”

* * *

Monitors beep.

Sunshine warms the bed.

A bandaged hand squeezes his.

“Love you, Peter Parker.”

* * *

A thumb of bourbon is poured. Tony throws it back…pours another one. The lab is dark, no projects lit up or scattered on the floor.

Only one tablet screen illuminates the early morning shadow on Tony’s face. He has three decanters ready. He wants to get intolerably drunk.

Desperately. _So _desperately.

Playing on screen are archive videos of Richard and Mary Parker. He’s been avoiding it, but after the Fourth of July fiasco a week ago, Tony relishes in the searing pain the videos cause him.

Tony raises his shot glass to Richard on screen, giving a press conference. “I don’t know how you parented, Richard. To you.”

He slams it back.

“I don’t deserve your kid.”

Another shot.

Two more fingers of bourbon. When that runs out, Tony switches to scotch. “I’m sorry for messing up your angelic kid who used to cry when he had to squish a _house fly_. I’m sorry that I was clueless to the fact Peter wasn’t just forgetting to call us…that May died and he…he was being brainwashed by a masochist…”

Tony’s drunken rambles pause. The screen shows Richard and Mary Parker in stunning evening wear, on the red carpet entering some science gala dinner.

This is the first video with a toddler in it.

Not a toddler. Tony sees the oak eyes and ruff of unruly hair and knows it’s Peter at a measly three years old, small for his age even then.

Tony watches the scene with a detached, devastated fascination. Camera bulbs flash at the happy family. Peter looks uncertain with so many people looking at him. His little dinner jacket is askew.

Tony, irrational, wants to reach through the screen and straighten it.

Peter’s tiny fingers stretch upwards. He tugs on his mother’s dress skirt.

Exactly twice.

Tony’s breath catches. He presses a palm to the video. Mary Parker bends down with an easy smile to be at eye level with pint-sized Peter but Tony stops watching.

He closes his eyes at familiar footsteps. “You knew. You knew it was a childhood habit.”

There is the quiet pad of loafers, limping slightly. They stop by Tony’s shoulder. A hand grasps it with a low throated hum of affirmation.

When Tony gathers his nerve and opens his eyes, Bruce has a warm smile stretched wide on his face. It doesn’t match a quick, falling tear that fogs his glasses.

“I met them at conferences all the time, since they were more my field,” says Bruce. “I even met Peter briefly…it might have been this very dinner, actually. May and Ben broke Peter of the tugging habit at once, I think.”

Tony shakes his head. Out of everyone on the team, he never would have bet Bruce to be the one who ran across Peter in childhood, before he met them and his life fell apart.

“I can’t believe Ross tried to take you. On _my_ turf. Hopefully the Tribunal treats my law suit seriously.”

Bruce shakes his head. His eyes flash but he’s laughing. “I can’t believe Hulk loves Peter.”

“Who doesn’t?”

They watch the rest of the videos in silence. Peter doesn’t appear in any more but that one image plays an endless loop before Tony’s eye. He goes to take another mouthful of alcohol, then puts it down.

Bruce’s voice drops to a whisper. “He woke up three days ago, Tony. The oxygen deprivation and subsequent altitude drop caused some further low blood pressure and anemia but he had those problems already. No brain damage. He’s _fine_, Tony.”

Tony doesn’t look up from his lap. “No thanks to me.”

Bruce slams his hand on the table. Tony jumps a mile out of his skin.

“He thinks you hate him!” Bruce hisses. “That you’re avoiding him.”

“I am avoiding him. For his own safety.” Tony’s eyes go blank. “I shot out the engines, Bruce.”

“And you probably saved his life. Ross’s team would be long gone with us.”

“No,” says Tony, rallying. “_You_ saved his life.”

“Tony, you recruited Peter after Ultron because we wanted a new team, a future generation with better morals to take over if…when we died. Just because he won’t get to be a part of that now doesn’t mean you failed.”

Tony shakes his head. His eyes water. “I should never have signed those guardianship papers.”

Bruce puts one hand on his hip and opens his mouth. Exploding volcanoes look more stable than his incensed face.

He never gets to say a word.

Steve charges into the lab, catching himself on the doorframe. His hair sticks up in finger worried spikes. The rove of his eyes makes Tony’s pulse skip two beats.

“We can’t find Peter! He’s gone!”

* * *

This nickname game has gone on for so long that it never strikes the team that maybe _Peter _has named _them_.

“Friday—talk to me.”

Tony has a hand on his chest where his heart is trying to pull a Sigourney Weaver and shatter outwards. The world is a blur of _wrong_.

“Peter seemed half asleep, boss,” Friday reports. “He stumbled out of the infirmary and wandered off somewhere down the hall. Hasn’t taken any stairs. My scanners lost him near the kitchen.”

Steve has the other four checking vents and cupboards as they shuffle in a clump through the building.

At Friday’s words, Steve whips his head in the other direction.

“What?” Tony asks. His tone turns demanding. “_What_, Rogers? Where would Peter be able to go that the sensors can’t…”

Steve doesn’t listen. He’s off at a power-walk-almost-jog towards the kitchen. Something in his eyes speaks of epiphany. Bruce’s face is next, lighting up. Clint and Natasha follow him without a word. Thor hangs back, insipid.

When Steve stops in front of one of Pepper’s beloved tapestries, nearly eight feet tall, Tony understands too.

Steve kneels and, with one flexed arm movement, yanks the fabric away from the wall.

They have all completely forgotten about the square hole in the wall that Tony hacked in the gyprock, promising to invent and install “the most epic AC system ever.”

Pepper, sick of the unsightly square depression, bought a tapestry to hide it. It’s wide at the bottom and low in height, barely five feet total. No one uses it.

Now it is empty and full at the same time.

Six Avengers fan around the open door. They stare inside the hole.

A sleepy pair of eyes stare back.

The flurry of motion has obviously woken Peter, who rubs his eyes. The cannula is still up his nose, now unattached from an oxygen tank. The sweat pants are rumpled, child sized orange hospital bracelet too big even for his wrist.

He’s flushed with deep sleep. His eyes wander over their faces, brows wrinkled.

That isn’t what makes Clint gape and Thor chuckle in delighted surprise.

Peter is lying on a nest of clothes.

A nest of _their _clothes.

Closer up, Tony can smell it too: Bruce’s aftershave on a tweed coat, Clint’s arm brace, a cape Thor’s mother wove acting as a blanket, Nat’s shampoo on the hoodie under Peter’s hip, Steve’s leather jacket…Tony spies his own undershirt as Peter’s pillow.

There are enough food wrappers and Peter’s own clothes to indicate that he’s spent copious amounts of time here. His one last secret.

“_Peter_,” Steve whispers, so tender it hurts.

Peter must wake enough to sense the thrumming shock in the room because he glances at their clothes and then back to them.

“Yours,” he says, voice even worse than usual because of finger shaped ligature marks around his neck.

“Yeah,” Clint manages. “It’s our stuff. Nice little fort you got here.”

Peter’s mellow face sparks a little. He shakes his head.

“Yours,” he insists.

The other Avengers exchange confused looks. Peter, clearly not willing to let his point go, tugs on Steve’s shirt.

Exactly _six _times.

Oh. _Oh._

Tony’s face crumples in one huge rush, in that blubbery way he never does in front of other people. Tears leak out his eyes before he’s inhaled the first sob.

He feels Bruce jump at his side. “Tony?”

“No,” he gasps out. “Can’t you see?”

Nat puts a hand on his arm. It’s tight, a request.

“He’s _ours_!” Tony wails like that explains everything.

It does.

“Of course,” says Steve, still looking bewildered. “We adopted Peter. Why are you…?”

Peter looks straight into Tony’s eyes. Tony falls to his knees and Peter’s crawling on all fours towards him with a smile.

He doesn’t even get all the way before Tony sweeps the boy to his chest, cupping the curly mess of hair.

Bruce bends to place a hand on Peter’s back. Another hand joins the first. Then another one. “You named us long before we ever named you.”

Peter nods at Bruce, beaming. He tugs on Tony’s shirt.

“You deserve somebody better!” Tony’s voice wavers all over the place. He hasn’t broken down like this in a long, long time. He’s stifled by the heat of his own face. “I’m not cut out to be a parent!”

Peter leans back to wipe a tear off Tony’s face. “To m-me you are.”

Tony curls over him.

His mind screams the same litany.

_You’re not cut out to be a parent! Not to someone as sweet as Peter. You’re not cut out to raise a kid! You’renotcutoutnotcoutoutnotcutout—_

But Peter thinks he is.

The teen holds Thor’s hand over Tony’s shoulder. Clint plants a quick kiss in Peter’s hair. Nat murmurs something in Russian. Steve is crying too, beginning to understand the silent gesture that’s gone on for months.

When Clint tickles Peter under the ribs, he lets out a hoarse little bark. It’s husky but they haven’t heard him truly laugh in almost a year. Even Nat is bright eyed.

Peter hums in his throat. “I love you guys.”

* * *

Peter doesn’t call the Avengers “Dad” or “Mom.” He doesn’t favour “Aunt” or “Uncle.” He doesn’t verbalize a name at all.

But he does tug on their clothing.

He asks them to present at his school on Career Day.

Flowers are always on Nat’s desk.

Late at night, he crawls up on Thor’s lap to hear stories.

He buys Tony and Steve a “World’s Best Dad” shirt each to match the mug.

Peter calls them _parents _every single day.

**Author's Note:**

> Written January 2018.
> 
> A good friend of mine is a child therapist and most of Peter's behaviours are taken from real life cases. Also, I've been on Peter's side of things - muteness is crippling.


End file.
